Doubt: Three Vignettes from the Dead of Winter
by blacktop
Summary: In the weeks after she leaves the hospital, Joss Carter's health crisis fades, but the emotional scars linger. Reese and Finch are buffeted by the high winds of this unprecedented storm. This story is a sequel to three others which deal with the near-fatal shooting of Reese and Carter: Full of Sound, Convalescence, and Recuperation.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

_A bitter day in early December_

Joss kept her hair carefully aligned over her collarbone every time John was near.

No need to remind him of the horrid scars along her neck, the rude marks of her brief flight with death. Thanks to him she had survived, but the margin had been as thin as a bird's wing.

Every day, seeing his anxious eyes and tight mouth, she was reminded of just how near a thing it had been for both of them. They could have died there in that abandoned alley, both bleeding dry from gaudy bullet holes before help arrived.

But they didn't: John saved her; Harold saved him.

After two weeks, her return home from the hospital had been an uproarious affair with her mother and girlfriends leading the balloon-laden celebration. Swaddled under her comforter in bed, she was draped in new pink flannel pajamas with a cheery paisley pattern, part of a gift set from John's landlady. Because Mrs. Soni believed comfort was more important than fashion and because Joss had lost considerable weight during her convalescence, the pajamas were at least two sizes too big.

Like coddled royalty, she received the stream of visitors in bed. They brought plates of food, magazines, gossip, and prayers. As the hours dragged on, the crowd in the living room became rowdy. Though she didn't get even one sip, Joss noted the scent of Champagne and heavier winter red wines in the air.

Her shrunken appetite dictated that she stick with ginger ale and a finger-sized sliver of ham sandwich. But she participated vicariously in the general feast.

She checked on the smothered chicken, pot roast, chicken-fried steak, and her favorite versions of scalloped potatoes and creamed spinach that burdened the dining table. It all looked delicious, she told them.

With dancing eyes, Taylor boasted of sampling four different chocolate cakes and two kinds of raisin oatmeal cookies supplied by the congregation at her mother's church. In her weakened state, her scowl couldn't deter him from also taking a gigantic slice of the bursting cherry pie sent over by the cook at Otto's Uptown Diner.

John had wisely chosen to avoid the boisterous party.

He arrived that evening after the girls had skittered out the door, after her mother had spirited away Taylor for a lamb chop and mashed potatoes conference in some secret location.

With the celebrants gone, the darkened apartment took on a hushed pall, reminding her of the dim hospital room she had just left. To fill up the empty spaces and push back the shadows, Joss climbed out of bed, shuffling down the hall to the kitchen again.

She heard John creep through the front door, but she was too tired to turn her head when he entered the kitchen.

He pressed his face to the top of her head as she stood in front of the open refrigerator.

She was confounded by the array of food, too exhausted to decide what to have for dinner. All those containers and tins and cartons of food crowding the shelves looked ominous to her, like weird tokens of some permanent infirmity.

Too many choices, too much caring and worry packed up inside each box. Her antsy stomach revolted and like an ungrateful child her impulse was to throw out every plastic cube and foil covered plate.

"John, I don't know what I want. There's so much. It's all too much."

The wail sounded pathetic in her own ears, embarrassing her so that she clamped her mouth shut after that.

John gently closed the refrigerator then and led her by the hand toward the bedroom. After she was under the puffy white comforter again, he pulled down a box from the shelf inside her closet and unfurled her late Aunt Juliette's hand-stitched crazy quilt.

"Even if you're not cold, you need this."

He tucked the frayed coverlet around her shoulders and stroked her cheek, staring at her with mournful eyes before heading back to the kitchen.

In a matter of minutes he returned with a cup of vegetable barley soup, a glass of milk, and a pyramid of her mother's home-made brownies on a tray. All simple and warm and just what she supposed she needed. She wasn't sure, but she was determined to try all the same.

"If this doesn't do the trick, then we'll have to just send you back to the hospital for some more of that delicious grub you're pining for."

A fleeting smile carried the weak joke to her so she replied with an equally hesitant tilt of her mouth.

When he kissed her forehead while settling the wicker tray on her lap, it was with such an unexpectedly delicate touch that she started to cry. Like feathers fluttering over her skin, his lips felt dry. His fingers as he stroked away the tears were cool and careful.

While she tried to sip the rich broth, she smoothed her hair around her throat, wishing it was a ribbon that could hide the awful scars. He tracked her gestures, another faint smile flickering at his mouth as his eyes traced patterns across her face.

She felt he was studying her at a judicious remove, like she was a project or a target. Measuring her reactions against some hidden yardstick of recovery and restoration.

His emotions seemed disguised from her now, mysteriously swathed by the conventionality of his comforting actions. She didn't know what to make of his feelings, how to read the silences or his mild jokes. Bantering seemed so stiff and difficult, like rehearsing lines for a new play they would never perform.

Trying to interpret it all, to get it right without upsetting anything, depleted her meager resources.

So the barley soup swamped her, the brownies tasted like dust, and she didn't even manage to finish more than two sips of milk. She suspected it had soured, or maybe her tongue was burned by the soup. Or maybe something else was wrong.

As John carried the tray away, she called out to him: "I just need to sleep, I guess. Maybe find a way out of this haze I'm in."

That wasn't exactly how she felt. But the words were close enough to true that she hoped they would erase some of the doubt she saw behind his eyes.

Was she supposed to have died for him? Was that the fate they had dodged? Were they living a substitute existence where the bullet wounds had just left ugly marks instead of fatal crevices in the heart? Were they paying the price now for a mistake they had made over a year ago?

That first night when he slept chastely beside her, his heavy arm over her waist, she awakened three times to make sure the scar was hidden. She turned her head so that as he slept his face couldn't nestle against the wrecked skin of her throat.

In the morning, she was pulled from sleep by the sounds of a shower.

At first she thought it must be Taylor getting ready for school as usual, but the gushing noises were closer than the hallway. Though it was still dark, she could see yellow light slicing under the door of the bathroom in her suite.

John was up already.

Had he gotten an early call from Finch summoning him to a new case? Surely she would have heard the buzz of his cell rattling across the night stand? She guessed she had been awake all night: her numbed senses suggested as much, but maybe she was wrong.

She knew the heat radiating off of John's body made her scratchy and sticky, his crowding kept her from sleeping except in fits.

Rest was stolen, so she must have been awake at dawn; she couldn't have missed that call, could she?

She listened to the varying sounds of the water as John moved under the nozzle.

The stream swooshed, then paused, then gushed again as he interrupted the spray. She wasn't certain but she thought she detected a word, a groan perhaps, then a curse in the midst of the splashing. She could picture his sleek head bent in concentration, his torso straining under the water's force as he frantically drove for his release.

A corresponding twinge pinched her insides, the erotic urge pulling at her until she turned her face into the cool pillow to smother it. She lay still under the covers waiting for the throbbing to subside, willing away the ache and the longing.

They didn't have to do this right away: he was injured, she was recovering. Sex was a luxury they could indulge in when the time was right. Now, the scrape of skin against skin made her stomach pitch in protest and her fingertips prickle with anticipatory despair.

As the bathroom door opened and steam crept along the floor next to her bed, she turned on her left side and pretended to sleep.

Talking about this, about anything really, was more than she could bear right now. Inspecting these shredded feelings, probing the tender layers of doubt would be work for another time when they both were stronger.

After he dressed, John kissed her lightly on the ear and then delicately touched her eyelids with his lips, like a cat waking his mistress in the most discreet manner possible. The green scent of Palmolive soap pricked her nostrils as he bent over her.

"I'm taking off early. No need for you to get up yet."

Through her sticky lashes, she saw his eyes were red. From the shower. It must be.

"Will I see you tonight?"

Doubt made her voice quaver until she gulped it down and smiled.

"If I'm lucky, yes."

She saw the bobble at his throat as he swallowed a promise.

"Go back to sleep now."

She awoke two hours later, the nagging doubts tugging at her mind as she swam up to consciousness again.

Turning on the lamp beside her, she found a single bullet standing upright on the night stand, guarding her tube of lip balm like a little soldier.

This was the bullet John had given her as a memento of the suicidal thoughts he had discarded so many years earlier, doubts he had overturned because of her.

This was the bullet she had returned to him in that lonely alleyway when she thought she was dying.

Rolling the token between her thumb and middle finger now, she noted its slightly dented surface, its mottled finish. When she kissed it the sharp tang of metal lingered on her lips.

His luck or his determination prevailed that night: John returned as she had hoped. And he came back the next night and the one after that, feeding her, sleeping beside her, touching her only if necessary.

Most evenings, she slipped away from the sofa alone, nodding at Taylor to encourage him to keep up the innocuous conversation with John.

If she and John retired at the same time, they lay side by side like dinner knives in a cutlery tray: dull, cool, and silent.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

_Three weeks later_

"I mustn't stay long, Detective. I know you need your restorative quiet."

Joss smiled at Finch's precise language.

The steam from the mug of tea at his lips had fogged up his glasses, but she was sure she could detect a gleam of affection through the obscured lenses. If he wasn't exactly winking at her, he was certainly twinkling.

"I won't claim to be a medical expert, but surely just three weeks out of the hospital is not nearly enough time to count yourself fully recovered from a gunshot wound, I would say."

"Well, alright. You got me there, Harold."

She leaned back against the sofa arm, stretching her legs out along its length. Spread across her lap, the jumbled colors of her Aunt Juliette's crazy quilt clashed with the pink flowers of her flannel pajamas.

"But at least I'm back on light duty at the station now. Desk jockeying for a few hours isn't much, but compared to sitting around here all day watching my nails grow, it is a real blessing."

Her hair was clutched into a bun at the top of her head. If she had had the time she would have combed it properly and arranged it so that the neck wound was covered.

Harold had witnessed the shooting, of course, and knew how seriously she had been injured. But still she wanted to spare him the sight of this gash and the implied accusation its clumsy stitches still carried.

So this visit was a surprise; she barely had time to slap on a protective dash of lip stick before answering the door. He had chosen the hour before Taylor was due home from school for his arrival, not a coincidence, she was sure.

As he settled in the high-backed wing chair opposite the sofa, she prayed Harold wouldn't notice her upswept hair and exposed neck. With what she hoped was an unremarkable movement, she tugged down a tendril to cover her wound.

Harold seemed to be decked out in an unusual number of layers, more clothing than required by the blustery weather, she judged.

Even after shedding the gray window-pane plaid overcoat, he still wore a wool suit in heathered blues and greens, under it a snug vest striped in turquoise and olive. The narrow magenta scarf he kept over his lapels complemented the red handkerchief and the flecks of red in his navy tie.

She thought she detected a festive hint of pomade which made the tufts of his hair shine as he turned his head before the frame of the bright window opposite them. Though the pink in his cheeks could have been the result of wintery gusts, she thought some of their glow came from a recent close scraping with a straight razor.

Harold's dress, his grooming, his manner underlined her first impression: this was indeed a noteworthy occasion.

In the past whenever she was around him, Joss had sensed an itchy impatience radiating off the man; she had the feeling that he wanted to dismiss her, found her company irksome, and was always searching for a way to cut their meetings short.

Like Alice's White Rabbit, Harold always seemed to be late for a very important date.

Sometimes she enjoyed poking at this prickly side of him by drawling out her end of their conversations, using her mother's best Southernisms to spice up – and slow down – the exchange. Getting his goat that way was fun.

She knew just how to drive Harold to the point of exasperation.

But, the teasing had its limits. Though she liked to nudge him out of his clenched formality, when the man's fidgety temper threatened to overcome his usually impeccable manners, she knew to stop.

This afternoon however, Harold didn't seem in such a terrible hurry.

Maybe it was the shooting itself that had tempered his impatience. Or maybe the wild oscillation of John's responses – from fiery rage to stony retreat - had reconfigured his friend's sympathies.

She had doubts about the exact causes for the change; perhaps she would never pinpoint them for sure. But as it began, this visit had all the relaxed appearance of an aimless social call. She was sure there was more to Harold's visit than that but she resolved to let him set the pace while she followed.

He wouldn't let her fix the tea when she offered it, even though she argued. He was determined to usurp her hostess role and so she decided to rest on the living room couch and enjoy his efforts.

While the water boiled she heard him opening every cabinet in her kitchen, scrabbling like a furtive mouse though every cranny in search of mugs and sugar cubes and the dented canister of loose tea and that crazed old brown pot she hadn't used in years.

He even dug out a forgotten package of Fig Newtons, still moist and sweet in their cellophane wrapper.

Employing the wicker tray that John had used for similar service, when he brought the mugs out to the living room and spread the quilt over her legs, he performed these tasks with such a courtly flourish that it set her laughing.

And it also touched her heart. She didn't feel deserving of this attention, but she recognized that it meant a great deal to him to have her just accept these kindnesses.

She knew something of John's vengeance-filled rampage in search of the man who had almost killed her. She knew that Elias had sent his mobsters to bring a bloody end to the job John couldn't finish.

But until this moment, she had not considered how deeply the shock must have affected Harold as well.

"I won't stay long, Joss. Just a sip and then I'm out the door." His voice was bright and warm, like the Darjeeling tea.

Her fingers fluttered to her neck again.

"You don't need to hurry away, Harold. I like the company. And don't treat me like an invalid either. I'm feeling stronger every day."

She thought he bristled at that, as if she had accused him of an impoliteness.

"John acts like I'm made of glass too. Like I'll break at the slightest touch. But I won't, you know. I promise, I'm alright."

Harold only straightened his back at this personal turn in the conversation. He let a vague sigh ruffle the steam curling around his face before he spoke again.

"He's…well, we both were quite shaken by the shooting. You must know that, Detective."

She nodded but remained silent.

"It's one thing to imagine your own demise. I think I can say with confidence that not a day goes by but John doesn't contemplate the possibility of dying."

She took his free hand then and pressed it between both of hers. He carefully placed the mug on the table.

"I won't claim he's alright with it, of course. But I believe that John has come to some resolution about the dire chances we face in our mission. In fact, I think he is truly consoled with the thought that you would survive him, if the worst came.

"But this…this was so different. So awful. To see someone you care for threatened, harmed before you can do anything to prevent it… I, um…Well that's…"

He closed his eyes and his voice hitched and he squeezed her hand in turn.

"Well, that's a horror from which it's hard to recover."

She had to press into this opening.

"But he will recover, won't he? I mean, I didn't die. And I'm here and I'm healthy. Or getting healthy anyway. He'll be better too, won't he?"

She wanted to ask: _He'll come back to me,_ _won't he?_ _We'll be better, won't we?_

But she couldn't make her plea so personal. Not like that.

"I hope so, Joss."

Though the words were confident enough, their quavering tone was an admission that Harold might have just as many doubts in these new circumstances as she did.

She knew that nothing he had ever done had been preparation for events like these. She had been in combat; John too. But Harold was plunging into new territory now, with no maps or guidebooks to point the way forward. They would have to forge on blindly together, just counting on their instincts to find the next steps.

But still she doubted Harold – worldly and brilliant – could be as dislocated as she was. He mustn't be.

She needed him to be steadier, solid, and sure-footed while she stumbled along this uncharted itinerary.

So she was grateful when he took the silence as a chance to turn their conversation in a new direction.

He drank deeply and looked past the curtains with a vague, even dreamy air. Then his regard turned precise again, his eyes piercing above his tight mouth.

"Well then, if you'll permit me the time and if you are feeling up to it, Joss, I've actually come on a mission. I've come to make an introduction, really."

He gasped as if taken aback by his own words, but didn't proceed further until she prompted him.

"An introduction? What's that supposed to mean, Harold?"

He cleared his throat, set the mug on the coffee table and fiddled with the unfastened lower button on his vest. Finally, after what seemed like an eon of deliberation, he continued.

"I know that you found your way on your own, Joss. A tribute to your ingenuity and your diligence, to be sure.

"But now I think it's time that I introduce you to the machine in a more formal manner."

xxxxxxxxx

So for the next hour they sat side by side on the sofa, the antique quilt stretched over both sets of knees, heads close together, breathing in unison like conspirators.

Harold's laptop was sprung open on his thighs and Joss had to lean into his left shoulder slightly to get a proper view of the screen.

First he took her on a virtual tour of the headquarters of his operation, which he called the Library.

"I can give you the address if you want."

He offered the information with a charming hesitation, ducking his head and looking down as if suddenly shy.

But the sly smile she threw at him as she rattled off the coordinates of their financial district headquarters won a warm chuckle in return.

"So you were on to us, were you?"

"From the start, Harold. I'm a detective, remember. Scoping out intel is what I do."

"But you never revealed your knowledge, Detective." He underscored her title with a low drawl and a sidelong smile.

"I just thought it was better to let you and John have your little fun. I always knew how to find you if I needed you."

Then with a lash of his fingers the screen split into nine sections, each offering a view into a different room of the Library.

Dimly lit chambers lined with dusty volumes multiplied across the screen: a long heavily carved table topped with a row of darkened lamps dominated one space; a cozy sitting room glowed in a yellow light as two wing chairs crowded behind a low coffee table where a crystal brandy snifter sparkled; in another room, glass-fronted curio cabinets flanked an ornate partners desk with green felt blotters above each kneehole; elsewhere several dingy rooms held chunky old-fashioned card catalogs, some of their long drawers overturned, the contents spilling across the tiled floor like the remnants of a card game interrupted.

In a majestic room with high coffered ceilings, she saw five monitors arrayed across a round table, one ergonomically correct chair pushed against its edge.

Behind the table, toward a bank of towering windows, she could make out a glass evidence wall. Taped to it were a photo of a brown-skinned woman with elaborate dreadlocks, a map of generous green spaces like those on a college campus, and an organization chart.

The glass board was garishly cracked.

She wondered why, with all his money and all his meticulous personal attributes, Harold kept a glass board with such a giant fissure across its surface. Surely he could afford a slick new glass board for his private work space. Or even a fancy touch screen wired to the Internet.

But then as she studied the board further, she saw that although the jagged blemish certainly disfigured the glass, the crack didn't hinder its functionality.

The glass evidence wall was damaged. Just like Harold was. Like John and now herself. But it still had a purpose and it still worked. Perhaps that was why he kept it, as a reminder and as an emblem of hope for them all.

Before she could pose the question, Sam Shaw sauntered across the room and crouched before a lumpy dog bed next to the round table.

Joss thought she looked like the special naughty elf Santa Claus chose to compile his list of sinners.

Saturnine in black tights, combat boots, and inky t-shirt, Shaw wore a black knit cap pulled low over her forehead. They watched as she placed a bone on the floor next to the dog bed and then strode away, her lips pursed in a tuneless whistle.

"Smile, Ms. Shaw. You're on candid camera!"

Harold's ringing voice startled Joss as much as it did Shaw.

The younger woman swiftly raised her head toward a corner of the room and grimaced directly into the camera lens. Then she stuck out her tongue at them and lifted an expressive finger for punctuation.

It pleased Joss that, despite all of Harold's best efforts to gentle her, Shaw remained as untamed and indecipherable as ever.

Next he showed Joss a tiny galley kitchen: just a microwave, a coffee maker atop a miniature refrigerator, and shelves holding six mugs and an equal number of plates. Upended packing crates supported boxes of crackers, dog biscuits, and dried fruit. A flat pink carton with its lid flipped open revealed that only two of the original dozen glazed doughnuts remained.

Joss recalled her melancholy visit to the vast chef's kitchen of Harold's townhouse, with its glowing stainless steel appliances and sumptuous marble counters stretching as far as the eye could see.

To make herself laugh instead of cry at these sad memories, she thought of Harold's dour housekeeper whose snooty manners rivaled those of a Downton Abbey lady's maid.

"Danvers must just hate this sorry excuse for a kitchen!"

"Oh, he's never seen it!" Harold chuffed at the idea. "And you're right; he would have an apoplectic fit if he ever did!"

She noted that Danvers had acquired a definitive pronoun, but chose not to comment on the successful outcome of that long desired transition.

When the pause extended, Harold filled in with a few details.

"I gave Danvers – Joe, as he now is – a shaving kit for Christmas and a year's membership in Apthorp's Club for Gentlemen. Just small things, really. But I wanted to do something to mark the occasion."

"I'm sure he'll like that, Harold."

The virtual tour continued as several more dusty rooms sprang across the screen in rapid succession, their floors littered with piles of moldering books and paintings curling out of their frames.

She saw a cage filled with shelves of leather-bound volumes. Its single greasy window and wire-framed walls lent the space the air of a sinister basket, an impression compounded by the padlock as large as a man's fist which gripped the cage door.

On a small rectangular table in the middle of the room was a hair brush clotted with fine brown strands and a bottle of black nail polish.

"Is this where Shaw bunks?"

The room didn't fit Shaw's esthetic, but Joss asked anyway.

"No. She has her own apartment uptown. Ms. Shaw has never expressed an interest in staying over at the Library and I doubt she ever will. She's an independent spirit, to be sure."

Nodding, Joss noted that he offered no explanation for the feminine items in the caged room. A puzzle for a future conversation, she decided.

After all these tumultuous years together and all the trauma of the past few weeks, Joss thought she had earned the nosiness she indulged in next:

"Show me where John stays."

The room Harold revealed then was dim and so crabbed it reminded her of a cell. Two thin blankets were folded neatly at the foot of the narrow cot, but the bare mattress lacked sheets or a pillow. A black cord for recharging a cell phone was coiled on top of the blankets.

Along a wall brass hooks bore wire hangers, three black suits arrayed there like a faceless jury delivering a verdict. Underneath the bed a pair of black boots gleamed from the shadows. On the floor next to the boots a small tin of shoe polish sat on top of a paperback, Mickey Spillane's _Kiss Me Deadly_.

Before Harold could summon the next screen shot, Joss glimpsed a long white cloth draped over the brass door knob.

Her silk head wrap. The one she had kept in John's room at Pooja's, the one she believed lost a year ago. Finding her white scarf here – stolen, saved, cherished - made her eyes sting with tears.

John could pretend to the solitary life, claim a hard stoicism that daunted her and often shut her out, but this flimsy scarf was proof to the contrary.

She had touched him as much as he touched her.

Joss wanted to shudder at the sight of this lonely room, with its simple tokens of a personal life reduced to its transitory minimum.

But since she was pressed against Harold's shoulder, she clamped down on the shivering inside. This sadness enveloping her wasn't a feeling she wanted to burden him with now. Or ever.

As if sensing the dreariness of her thoughts, he interrupted them with phrases wrapped in soothing tones.

"You know, he doesn't stay here all that often anymore. But I suppose it does offer a convenient landing spot, when he needs it."

She turned her face toward him so he could see the gentle frown that accompanied her next words.

"This place is so much more than just a convenience to him, Harold. You must know that."

He removed his glasses and, sighing, rubbed them against the frayed quilt on his knee.

"Yes, I think I do now."

His eyes, milky blue irises focused on a secret horizon beyond the darkening windows, startled her with their intensity.

"Thank you for that, Joss."

When the lenses were polished and shining again, he held them aloft to catch the last light from the bleached winter sun.

She felt the mood lift with that simple gesture.

Now it was on her to guide the conversation into a brighter path.

"So enough of this tour of the boys' super-secret clubhouse!"

She wrinkled her nose in mock horror.

"You guys need to hire a good cleaning service for that place: shovel the dust out, wipe down the mold, and let the fresh air in once in a while, why don't you?"

She laughed until he did too.

"Now let me see that evidence board again, Harold. Up close this time! Chop-chop!"

She clapped her hands together as if summoning a genie from an oil lamp.

"No hiding your master work from me anymore. I want a peek under the hood now. Let me work a case from the inside with you."

And so they did.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

_Two evenings later_

"Iodine or ointment?"

In her right hand, Joss held up the dark little bottle caked on the rim with its dreadful liquid. In her left she squeezed the bottom of a tube of antiseptic.

John peered into the mirror in her bathroom, and they leaned forward together to examine once again the three scarlet scratches festooned across his left cheek.

They were both dressed in flannel – a gray and blue plaid shirt over black boxer shorts for him, pink striped pajamas for her.

"She got you pretty good, looks like!"

Joss felt bubbly, a fond smile dancing across her mouth as she stood beside him. He shifted from side to side, his bare toes curling against the cool tiles. The muted blue shades of the shirt did something wonderful for his eyes, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to tell him that just yet.

"Well, I don't know…"

He closed his eyes to block out the reflection of his battle scars, but she could see the bobbling of his Adam's apple which signaled he was on the verge of laughter too.

She insisted on showing off her expertise as she ran a finger over his cheek: "That's natural nails right there. No acrylics can leave marks like that!"

He sighed elaborately and pointed at the iodine.

"Going old school, hunh?"

She never doubted he would pick the traditional treatment, but it was reassuring to have her assumption confirmed. Somehow this tiny thing, just this little affirmation buoyed her confidence, made her feel that she could read him again.

She unscrewed the bottle, dipped a cotton swab into its clotted depths, and balancing on tip-toes, dabbed at the scratches until they were painted completely. He winced and she thought he looked handsome and brave with this war decoration. She would find a way to let him know that too in time.

"Tell me again: how big was this Reva woman and how did she take you down like this?"

She kept her voice soft and sing-songy, to make sure he knew she was just teasing. His raised eyebrows and quirked mouth showed he got her tone and was happy to return it.

"Five two, maybe three. One hundred and fifteen tops. But she didn't 'take me down' exactly. I handled her alright. I mean, after Dean Pinderhughes clocked her with a Yoruba sculpture she kept handy right there in her office, it was pretty easy to get Reva handcuffed."

They both laughed at the improbable images cast by his thumbnail account of the latest case.

First aid treatment complete, Joss led John by the hand to bed where they settled under the fluffy white comforter.

She picked up her Aunt Juliette's colorful old quilt from the floor and folded it around his shoulders, clucking softly as if to an invalid. She extinguished the lamp on her side of the bed, so that the cottony moonlight was their only illumination.

They both leaned back against the headboard, stretching their legs out straight, little toes touching under the covers.

If his face was scratched so was his ego, even though he accepted her teasing, so she let him turn the conversation to her role in solving the case.

"How did you and Finch narrow down all those suspects to pinpoint Reva Chang anyway?"

She was ready to boast so that simple prompt was all she needed to set her off.

"I just figured that we should start where we begin any investigation: if Galaxy Pinderhughes was the number, then find out who knows her, who works with her, who worships with her, who sleeps with her, who does her nails and tightens her dreadlocks. Those are our suspects. Either they want to kill her or she wants to kill them, straight forward as that."

John nudged his shoulder into hers and snorted softly.

"That seems remarkably cynical, Detective."

"Just realistic, wise guy. Works every time."

"O.K., so skipping the technical mumbo jumbo, I figure the machine spit out all sorts of lists once Finch asked for it."

"Yeah, within a few seconds the screen was just jumping with all these black tables floating in front of our eyes showing the names, ages, addresses, and nature of the relationship to Dean Pinderhughes."

"Hundreds of people?"

Joss could see a familiar sharpness in John's eyes, signs of a keen involvement in her story, even though his slumped posture suggested studied disinterest.

"Thousands. So I said to Harold, just give me the people working with Pinderhughes at Hudson University for starters."

"That's still over three thousand employees, Joss."

"Well, sure. We kept the three thousand, but sorted by educational background. I wanted to find out every person at Hudson who went to school with Pinderhughes. The university people I know have long memories and hold grudges like jackals gripping that last bite of carrion. If anyone wanted to kill her it wouldn't be just because of some new offense, some outrage that happened last week. The roots of the hatred had to go back years, maybe decades."

Reese pushed the account over the next hurdle with ease.

"Yeah, decades. Three to be exact. So you found out that Pinderhughes had been at college with Davis Chang?"

Joss nodded. "Galaxy was the crusading editor of the Oberlin student paper when he was the crusading president of the student senate."

"True love on the barricades, hunh?" His lip curled in a Presleyian sneer as he finished his rhetorical question.

"Hey, look who's all cynical now!" Joss bumped shoulders in imitation of his earlier gesture. "Yeah, they hooked up back then, but got unhooked pretty fast after graduation.

"And thirty years later they both end up at Hudson. She's Dean of Arts and Sciences, he's chair of American Studies. File it under S for Small World."

John shook his head at this thicket of academic entanglements.

"And how does Reva fit into all this?" He touched an index finger to the scratches on his cheekbone delivered by the irate young woman.

"Dr. Chang married Reva when she was still a graduate student of his. Just over two years ago."

"Yeah, but where's the motive? What made Reva so burned up about Pinderhughes that she wanted to murder her?"

"I asked Harold to run a list of recent publications by Hudson faculty and crosscheck for any mention of Galaxy's name. Nada. Zip."

Joss made her lips pop to emphasize the negatives.

"But then the computer came up with a new book by Chang, out just last week. When the screen flashed the dedication page, we had it all right there."

She leaned back and crossed her arms over her breasts, hoping that the smugness didn't overtake the satisfaction in her voice.

"O.K. I can see you're dying to tell me. So what was in Chang's dedication?"

Joss laughed and bent her face into the crook of his neck.

"Don't hate me, but it was Shakespeare. _Hamlet_ to be exact."

"Fine. I'm holding off my hate. For now. Give me the quote."

"Davis Chang wrote: Quote _I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a  
king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams_ Unquote. That pretty much told the whole story, I figure."

John's face split into a mischievous grin. Without missing a beat he offered the solution to the riddle.

"So the infinite space is Galaxy, right? And he would be her king if not for those bad dreams. Which would be Reva."

"Bingo!" She clapped her hands in triumph.

"As soon as Reva got hold of a copy of her husband's new book and got a load of that dedication, she started planning ways to eliminate her rival once and for all."

Joss's breathing was speeding toward panting and she could feel the warmth rising in her cheeks at the triumphant solution to the case.

"So now you're all hot for the machine, are you?"

His eyes caressed her face, but she felt he wasn't really teasing her despite the lightness of his phrases.

"Should I be jealous?"

"I've seen how it works now, John. I've seen its power, its scope. The complexity and daring of Harold's creation dwarfs anything we've ever experienced or ever could hope to know. It's quite literally a dream brought to life."

"And you don't have doubts about privacy issues?"

"Sure, I worry about that. I know Harold does too. But the good we can accomplish far outweighs those concerns, I think."

"A true believer now, are you?" His somber tone registered the seriousness of her change of heart.

And then in a flash, amusement scampered across his face and the wrinkles deepened around those remarkable eyes. He lowered his voice and blew a whispery question across her ear.

"So, how would you feel if I told you I was surprised to see you were the second tallest girl on your seventh grade basketball team? Still short, but kinda cute too!"

"You've seen those pictures?"

"Sure. It's all in your file, Detective. The one the machine keeps on you. It's pretty comprehensive."

Joss sputtered but failed to come up with a coherent rejoinder, which gave him the opening to continue unpacking his research discoveries.

"Your back-in-the-day hairdo was pretty amazing too: sort of short shingles up one side and then longer drapes down the other."

He waved his hands around his head in approximation of the whimsical contours of her middle school hair arrangement.

"And bangs chopped off way high! Was there a name for that look or were you just free-styling?"

She lifted a handful of hair over her ear and flicked a few strands like a fringe tossed by the wind.

"You mean like this?"

Shifting so that she could face him squarely, Joss settled over his legs, balancing on her knees so that her weight floated above his thighs without pressure. Using both hands, she held her hair on top of her head, arching her bare throat towards him.

She saw his eyes drop toward the scar on her neck. He stretched out a finger to touch the gnarled tissue there as she held her breath. As she watched, his transparent expressions flitted from light to dark in an instant. A smoky gloom settled over his eyes and he blinked twice.

He pressed three fingers lightly against her skin, just grazing the twisted ridge as his glance moved slowly from her clavicle to her jaw and then her mouth.

"I'm scared, Joss."

"I know."

"This…all of it. Everything. Just knocked the ground out from under my feet."

She tried a different simile to signal her understanding.

"Yes, I feel like I can't catch my breath yet. Like I've been punched in the gut and can't inhale."

But he wanted to run with his thought now that he was finally talking out loud.

"You ever been in an earthquake?"

She shook her head no and lowered her body onto his legs. Resting her hands lightly on his shoulders, she smoothed the flannel as he continued.

"I was in two: Once in Islamabad, then in Puebla, Mexico. Both times the feeling was the same: first you think it's your head or your stomach playing tricks on you. Like you're hung-over or sick or something. Then you realize it isn't _in_ you, but _outside_ you. The walls are shimmying, the street is rolling. The earth is falling out from under you. And you can't do a damn thing about it."

She raised her fingers above the soft collar and let them flutter against the hair at the line behind his ears. The vibrations carrying his voice thrummed against her palms.

"You feel so small in an earthquake. Lost and weak in the… Just the size of it all." He let out a shuddering breath.

"And now, I'm scared. Never was before, but now I am."

She leaned forward and touched her lips to his, her mouth open to accept his warm exhalations.

After several moments of silence, she spoke.

"I always thought I would get killed in the line of duty."

John smiled ruefully and coupled his shattered belief to hers.

"And I always thought I could protect you from everything."

When she had left a flurry of kisses on his eyelids, she concluded:

"Turns out both of us were wrong."

Talking done for the while, she carefully opened the buttons on his shirt, letting her fingers float over his chest until she could feel the heat wafting from his skin. His ears were pink and warm.

He kept his arms at his sides, even when she pushed the shirt off of his shoulders. When he slid down so that he was prone below her, she didn't try to work his wrists out of the cuffs, letting the sleeves and tail bunch under his back where he lay.

Splotches on his left shoulder had turned a warm ivory, erasing the angry yellow of an old bruise. As she watched, the knobs and sinews there flexed under her flying fingers, the muscles of his neck and shoulders straining for contact with her nails. Binding his arms caused the biceps to stretch and twitch as her fingers traced the bluish green veins there.

She studied the gentle rise and fall of his hard breast under her curving palm, the way the hairs there seemed to shiver as she leaned close. A fine veil of moisture rose on his flesh and when she exhaled his copper-colored nipples puckered in response. She drew her teeth against these tender nerve endings, nipping freely since he couldn't escape.

He moaned then and she drew her tongue along his ribs, leaving a filmy gauze that she could provoke to prickling tension with a plume of air.

With her ear hovering just above his chest, his heartbeat was like a whisper in the blood. So she kissed that place and another and another and another until she reached his trembling navel.

It excited her that she could orchestrate his body's responses with mere murmurs, undo his steely composure with a cool breath across the skin. To test her control, she puffed and sent a constellation of goose bumps skittering down his heated flanks.

Her loose hair draped across his stomach and laced with the wispy spray of darker strands that trailed down from the navel. Her tongue embroidered such fine patterns over and along and under the waistband of his boxers that he prayed to her for pity.

She raised up then and slowly undid the buttons on her pajama top. When it was open she let the lapels float over her breasts but didn't remove the shirt.

Between her breasts an airy silver chain suspended a dented bullet casing. She said nothing as the amulet bobbed over her heart, but she noted how his eyes started slightly at the sight. His lips parted as if he wanted to speak but couldn't. The pink interior of his mouth, that vulnerable moisture there, sent shivers dazzling through her insides.

She whisked the billowy pants off with a single gesture and resumed her place over him.

Gasping, his words were barely audible.

"Now me. Please."

She slipped off the boxers at last and took him into her body.

Flying above him, she felt transported, freed and light. His weight inside her was a solid anchor, rocking with her movements, rooting her even as she soared.

With her hands grasping his waist for leverage, she rose to make a space between them.

As she hovered over him, she curved her neck to better marvel at the perfect joining of their bodies: the clasping of lips and rustling of hair and gliding of hips and lacing of limbs; the joyful whooshing sound they made as they closed and the anticipatory whisper when they parted; inhaling as the rigid flesh met the yielding, then exhaling, then inhaling again.

When she was ready, she let her fingers drift down her belly. She touched the crisp curls and her own tiny erection, her fingertips darting in a tight pattern as he watched.

"Ah," he breathed. And she sighed, "Yeah."

Just before she climaxed, a hush calmed the atmosphere and she closed her eyes. She felt a hot breeze waft over her damp breasts and belly, the air feathering and shimmying around her face when she opened her mouth to cry out his name and God's.

With his arms still bound, he came in waves of silent pulses, searching, seeking, thrusting into her until he was exhausted.

Blowing gently, they lay together for several minutes. She slipped to his side as she always used to do.

But this time she stopped herself from curling up there. Pulling him upright, she drew the flannel shirt from his arms, helping him work his hands free.

Joss felt that a crisis had been surmounted, some dilemma dissolved in the fumes of their desire. She didn't want to analyze or understand or scratch away at what she had with John right now.

She doubted this was happiness, knew this wasn't security. But it was good and it was true and it was real.

So she took off her shirt too and arms entwined, they pressed their chests together. Breathing in unison they fell asleep, the bullet nestled between them.


End file.
